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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22378753">a moon's breath from your side</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives'>sadlikeknives</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, M/M, Werewolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:22:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,305</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22378753</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>To live with a werewolf was to learn to live by the moon.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kyle Brooks/Warren Smith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a moon's breath from your side</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/gifts">estelraca</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>To live with a werewolf was to learn to live by the moon.  They worked to make sure it didn't matter, made out like it was just the full moon shift and nothing more, but Kyle knew better by now.  A lot of werewolves got more short-tempered around the full—Ben, for example, always did, and he was ill-tempered to start with, so sometimes he got...interesting, but he was getting better about that all the time.</p>
<p>Warren didn't have that problem, but then, compared to most dominant werewolves, Warren didn't have that much of a temper.  Warren let pretty much everything roll off him like water off a duck's back.  At the full moon, Warren got <i>hungry</i>.  For three or four days every month as the moon waxed he ate like he was starving, and he was absolutely insatiable in bed.  Kyle loved it, loved how rough and needy he could get, that he trusted that Kyle could handle it, but not-so-secretly Kyle's favorite part of the cycle was the night of the full moon, after the hunt, when the moon had pulled Warren into his wolf skin and released him back to human form, when he came home sated but with the wolf still near the surface, still riding just under his skin.  It was like he was settling back into himself, and there was an easiness to those nights that had become something like precious to Kyle.  He usually tried to wait up, but sometimes he didn't manage it.  Moonrise hadn't been until after ten o'clock this month, so the hunt had started late to begin with, and he ended up waking in the darkness sometime before dawn with Warren gently moving his hibernating laptop off the bed.  "'M awake," he protested.</p>
<p>"Mm-hmm, I believe you," Warren said, and Kyle could hear the smile in his voice.</p>
<p>He moved away, and Kyle protested, "Come to bed."  </p>
<p>"I need to shower first."  The pack cleaned up after a hunt, Kyle knew, but depending on where they ran it was usually a cursory thing meant to avoid having to clean their cars in the morning, and wet wipes and a bottle of Listerine passed around like a flask could only do so much.  "I have elk in my hair."  And there it was.</p>
<p>"Nice."  </p>
<p>Warren huffed with amusement and said, "Go back to sleep," before he went into the bathroom, knowing full well Kyle was not going to go back to sleep.</p>
<p>The shower came on, and he gave it a minute or two for Warren to get the elk out of his hair before he followed him into the bathroom.  He flicked on the light Warren hadn't bothered with and took a moment just to admire the long, lean lines of him under the water through the glass door of the shower.  There was, in fact, a distinctive pinkish tint to the water trickling off his left shoulder.  It must have been a wild night.  Warren looked up at him and he smiled, lazy and pleased, and his eyes flickered gold before he ducked his head back under the spray.  <i>Mine</i>, Kyle thought with fierce satisfaction.  This was his, and no one else got to have it.  He did not quite delude himself that no one else ever had—there were other gay werewolves bouncing around out there, of course when Warren's path had crossed with one of them they'd sometimes had sex, and there were other supernatural types with whom Warren would not have had to pretend, would not have had to hide half of himself as he had from so many human lovers.  He spoke fondly enough of a half-fae with whom he'd used to hook up that if Kyle worked at it he could probably have managed a twinge of jealousy.  But Kyle was the one who got to keep him, and right now he felt downright smug about that.</p>
<p>Kyle did not join Warren in the shower.  Warren never took long enough in the shower to make that sort of thing really worthwhile, and Kyle had already given him a head start, besides which if he had elk in his hair God only knew what he had in his teeth.  Instead, he leaned back against the counter and let himself watch, and said, "I don't think I've ever had elk.  Is it delicious?"</p>
<p>Warren sort of hummed confirmation.  "You'd prefer it cooked, I think."</p>
<p>"Probably," Kyle agreed.</p>
<p>"I thought you were doing the no screens in bed thing."</p>
<p>"Oh, honey.  You can't possibly be surprised that I fell off that wagon."</p>
<p>Warren chuckled, low and rich in his chest, then shut off the water and stepped out, dripping, and crossed the bathroom to him, ducking his head to kiss Kyle only to be stopped short by his hand on his chest.  Kyle gave him a warning look, and Warren gave him a smile that was about half wolf and ran his thumb over Kyle's lower lip, sending a dark shiver down his spine.  Warren let his thumb rest at the corner of Kyle's mouth and accused, "Prissy."</p>
<p>Kyle turned his head enough to nip at the pad of Warren's thumb, just to watch his eyes turn yellow again.  "You love it."</p>
<p>"I do," Warren agreed, and then he moved over to the sink so he could brush his teeth.  Kyle threw a towel at the back of his head and went back into the bedroom, slipped into sheets still holding traces of body warmth.  Warren joined him a minute later, his hair still damp, his mouth hot and tasting only of mint when Kyle rolled to his side and kissed him.  "Don't you have a mediation in the morning?" he asked against Kyle's lips.</p>
<p>"That's what coffee is for."</p>
<p>Warren cupped Kyle's jaw with one hand and pulled back, looking at him.  The moonlight spilling in through the French doors to the balcony was at his back, and Kyle couldn't make out his features in the shadows.  For not the first or even the hundredth time Kyle wondered what Warren saw when he looked at him like this.  If he even remembered what it was like to not be able to see in the dark.  "What?" Kyle asked him, smiling a little.</p>
<p>"What is it about this..." Warren wondered.</p>
<p>He would have thought it was obvious.  "I just like being here when you come home."  Warren kissed him again, soft and fond, and it could have stayed just that, easy kisses in the dark until they drifted off on them, and that would have been good, but this time, the heat built between them slow, mouths exploring each other, hands wandering before finally wrapping around each other's cocks, bringing each other over in a sweet rush of pleasure.</p>
<p>"Now I need a shower," Kyle murmured, and Warren pulled him in close and kissed his cheekbone, his jaw, before tucking his face into the curve of his neck and inhaling deeply, pulling in a lungful of the smell of him like he wanted to bottle it.  'Like,' hell, he probably did want to.</p>
<p>"In the morning," Warren said.  His arm was like a vice around Kyle's body, but if he made any move at all to actually get up, he knew he would let him.</p>
<p>"It's gonna itch."</p>
<p>"I'll make it worth your while."</p>
<p>"You always do," Kyle told him.  His alarm would be going off soon enough, and he'd get up and shower then, but for now he could lie here and sleep a little more with the man he loved.  Tomorrow night the moon would begin to wane, and in twenty-eight days they would be here like this again, back in each other's arms in the last light of the full moon.  Kyle couldn't imagine wanting anything more.</p>
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